


The Ghost in Me and You

by Nightmarish



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Force Ghosts, Gen, Rey Kenobi, Rey Skywalker, if that's your space jam, kinda-sorta-implied, the Force works in mysterious ways, this could also work as implied, which isn't my preference but it totally wrote itself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2016-01-24
Packaged: 2018-05-15 21:34:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5801005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nightmarish/pseuds/Nightmarish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where Anakin Skywalker’s spirit splits into two entities. The kids are not alright.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ghost in Me and You

**Author's Note:**

> So, there are probably about a dozen stories already out there that explore this exact concept, but the number of "Force Awakens" stories seems to quadruple every time I blink, so whatever. Haven't read them, would like to. Please rec. Ahem. I am also sick? As in literally ill. I probably should wait and edit this tomorrow, but sick=no patience. Does "write drunk, edit sober" count for Nyquil?
> 
> Also, please note that I have completely discarded any information that did not happen on screen. I know there's some printed material out there with more of Rey's early life on Jakku, but in these situations my general policy is similar to "pics or it didn't happen."
> 
> I may be sick, but I'm not delusional. I do not own Star Wars. Disney could crush me into tiny pieces. Probably with an AT-AT. Of course, first they'd have to find me in all of this snow and we all know that Hoth-like conditions are not the ideal environment for such war machines.
> 
> Read on, gentle folk. Read on.

+

 

_A dark shadow passes over a bright sun._

 

+

 

Rey is never exactly sure how old she is.

 

With no one to remind her growing up, her lifedays slip by unnoticed and unmarked. On a planet like Jakku, galactic backwater scrap heap that it is, it’s not that uncommon. The inhabitants of this picked-over war carcass are mostly scavengers like Rey. It’s enough of a fight just to survive; to squeeze and coax and coerce the tiniest jots of life out of the dusty ground and unforgiving skies.

 

The desert does not care if you are young or old. It will kill you just the same if you let it.

 

+

 

When she’s ten or eleven cycles, Rey finds a broken down speeder half-buried in the sand. It’s in sorry shape, misused and discarded, but it’s free for the taking and worth more to her if she can manage to fix it than the meager portions she’ll get for the parts at the Outpost. She trades a couple of days’ rations for a tow back to the downed AT-AT she’s made her home, and even though her stomach rumbles in protest, she can’t wipe the grin off her face.

 

Rey is a good scavenger. She has a knack for machinery. She picks things up quickly by watching others; what’s worth something, what’s trash even to a junker. She’s small and quick and can fold herself into tight spaces where others cannot, but at the end of the day, she’s still just a human girl. She’s not strong enough to haul half of what she can find in a day back across the hot sands.

 

A speeder changes _everything_.

 

It’s trial and error, sheer determination, and the better part of six months that eventually gets the speeder off the ground. She ends up rebuilding half of it, sacrificing more scavenged parts to the project. The magnetic field works perfectly, but the engine makes a guttural groan when she tries the accelerator, and a series of ominous clicking noises deep in the belly of the speeder have her at a loss.

 

“Your wires are crossed.”

 

Rey yelps and tumbles backwards into the sand, she’s so startled. She’s up again in an instant, though, with her wrench held over her shoulder like a club. Weakness is the enemy on Jakku. _Never appear weak_.

 

A boy is watching her from a short distance away. He’s young looking, about her own age (probably), with bright, intelligent eyes.

 

“Sorry,” he says, and holds up his empty hands in the universal gesture of ‘I come in peace.’ She doesn’t trust that for an instant, but she doesn’t immediately back away when he moves closer. “See?” He points into the heart of the engine, where she’d been tinkering. “Those two wires there – you’ve got them reversed.”

 

She looks, in spite of herself; follows the wires back to their origin points, and sees that the boy is right.

 

“Oh,” she says, feeling her face flush a little with embarrassment. “I didn’t notice.”

 

“You might want to replace the ---- too,” he suggests, wedging himself in even closer until his face is practically inside the speeder. “This one’s falling apart.”

 

“I know,” Rey admits, forlorn. “I haven’t found one yet.”

 

“Huh,” the boy huffs thoughtfully. “I wonder if…” He sticks his hand inside the engine and feels around for something, tongue caught between his teeth. He pulls back and looks at her. There’s a streak of machine oil on his nose. “Hey, can I borrow that wrench?”

 

Rey’s wariness hasn’t entirely disappeared, but there’s something about this boy that’s familiar to her. She wants to trust him. It’s an odd feeling. But he obviously knows his way around an engine and she’s desperate. She hands him the tool, and he smiles brightly before diving back in.

 

“What are you doing?” she asks when she can keep silent no longer – but her tone is one of curiosity, not accusation.

 

“Fixing it,” the boy says, his voice muffled. He leans back to survey his work. “You almost had it, but it’ll run better now. At least until you can replace that ----.” He beckons her closer and points out what he’s done. Then he steps back and blinks at her expectantly.

 

Rey hauls herself up over the side of the speeder and starts the engine with trepidation. It purrs to life beneath her. The ominous death rattle is gone. Hesitantly, she revs the engine a little. She glances down at the boy, who grins widely and gives her a double thumbs up.

 

“Try the accelerator!”

 

Clenching her legs tightly around the machine, Rey does. The speeder jolts forward and she releases the clutch in surprise. She takes a deep breath and tries again. This time, she doesn’t let up and the speeder zooms forward. It’s faster than she had imagined. The wind burns her cheeks and her eyes stream, but she feels like she’s _flying_. She lets out a yell of triumph and turns the speeder in a wide arc, eager to share her success with her new friend.

 

But when she returns to her camp, the boy is nowhere in sight. She slides off the speeder and turns around in a full circle, hand thrown up to shield her eyes against the glare of the setting sun. _Where did he go?_ She’d only been gone a few minutes. The sand stretches out around her, undisturbed and void of life.

 

Rey is puzzled, and for a moment she’s a little sad. But then she turns back to her beautiful, rusted, _functional_ speeder, and nothing can shake the delirious happiness that threatens to overwhelm her.

 

Maybe he’ll turn up again someday. She just has a feeling.

 

+

 

_Pain. Pain and regret. Blinding, all-consuming fear. He is not going to survive this. He’s made a mistake. He’s not strong enough for this. He’s going to_ die _. It’s only a matter of time._

 

+

 

A man tries to steal the speeder when she’s somewhere between twelve and fourteen.

 

He’s probably only a couple of cycles older than she is, in reality. Sixteen at the very outside. He’s new, only been hanging around for a couple of months, and she’s caught him staring at her more than once. His gaze makes the skin on the back of her neck prickle uncomfortably, but she ducks her head and does her best to ignore the attention. She’s been stared at by men like him before.

 

She only realizes his true intentions when she’s lying sprawled out on the ground with the breath knocked out of her by a blow from his staff, and he’s swinging himself up onto her speeder.

 

He’d been sizing her up, looking for an easy target. Looking for someone who wouldn’t fight back, but it wasn’t her body he was after. For a split second, she’s relieved – and then she’s _furious_.

 

With a snarl of rage, Rey launches herself up and out of the sand and latches onto the thief’s ankle just as he takes off. He yells and tries to kick her off, but she clings like a parasite and stabs him in the calf with the tiny knife she keeps on her belt. It’s a tool, not a weapon, but he screams in pain and the speeder veers suddenly to the left. The sharp change in direction throws them both tumbling into the sand below. The speeder keeps going for a few hundred yards, but it’s open desert in front of them and it will coast to a stop eventually. Rey keeps clinging to the thief.

 

As soon as she can draw enough breath, Rey starts punching and kicking every part of him she can reach.

 

“Gerroff me, you kriffin’ little – agggghhhhh!”

 

She stabs him again, this time in the upper thigh. He manages to shove her off and kicks out with his good leg. Rey flies backwards. He staggers to his feet and she scrambles quickly to hers. Crouching defensively, her eyes dart around furtively. Adrenaline courses through her body, but panic is starting to creep in. He’s a lot bigger than she is, and even though he’d screamed like a baby, she knows she didn’t hurt him too badly with the knife. She takes a step back, weighing her options. Her foot bumps into something hard, but she ignores it, keeping her eyes glued to her opponent.

 

He lunges suddenly.

 

Two things happen at once: the man lunges at Rey, and someone shouts Rey’s name.

 

“Rey, the staff!”

 

Realization dawning, Rey drops low to avoid being tackled and scoops up the man’s discarded weapon from where it had landed when they’d fallen off the speeder. She twists and swings blindly. The blow clips the man’s collarbone and he yells and stumbles back, clutching at the spot. Rey surges forward, swinging the weapon again, and takes out his legs at the ankles. It’s a wild strike, but it serves its purpose. Almost before his knees hit the sand, Rey spins the staff around once more and brings it down hard on his head.

 

She stands over him, her chest heaving from exertion, and wipes a trail of blood from her chin with the back of one hand. He’s whimpering, clutching his head, cowering in the sand at her feet. Rey is distantly aware that a small crowd has gathered behind them.

 

“Never. Steal. From me. Again,” Rey bites out angrily, and slams the end of the staff into the ground by his ear. He squeals and cringes away from the blow. Rey swings the staff up and over her shoulder. And then she turns, and stalks off in the direction of her hijacked speeder.

 

The crowd parts to let her pass. Low murmurings follow her but she ignores them. As the spectators begin to disperse, leaving the would-be-thief where he lies, a long figure detaches itself from the group and jogs to catch up to her.

 

“I don’t think you have to worry about thieves anymore,” her shadow confides teasingly.

 

Rey glances sideways at him, and does a double-take. “I know you!”

 

“You should keep the staff,” the boy – older now, like Rey – says like he doesn’t hear her. “You need a weapon, out here.”

 

Rey stares at him for a long moment. “I thought I dreamt you,” she says. “Where did you go?”

 

She’s ashamed to hear a faint waver in her voice. The adrenaline is leaving her now, and she feels shaky and wrung out. Her shoulder aches from hitting the ground hard, and her hands sting, the skin over her knuckles torn and bloodied.

 

“Ah,” the boy says, reaching up to rub the back of his neck self-consciously. “I couldn’t stay. I wanted to, believe me…but it’s difficult.”

 

Rey frowns. “That makes no sense.”

 

The boy shrugs. “Sorry.” He does look sorry, too, but Rey can tell that he isn’t going to explain further. He nods ahead of them. “Looks like the speeder’s alright, at least. Good thing, after all the work I put into it!”

 

“ _I_ did most of the work,” Rey says indignantly. “You just showed up at the very end!” She runs a hand fondly over the speeder’s flank like it’s a beloved friend.

 

“I did the important part,” the boy insists.

                                                   

“Look,” Rey begins hotly, but stops when she sees that the boy is laughing at her. She rolls her eyes, annoyed with herself for arguing with someone she’s not even convinced is real. “Never mind.” She jams her new staff through the loops of the net she’s secured to the speeder’s side. “What’s your name?” she asks. _If you have a name, does that mean you’re real?_

 

The boy smiles at her. It’s a small smile, smaller than the giant sun-bright grins she’s used to ( _can you be used to someone you’ve only met twice?_ she wonders) but no less sincere by her reckoning.

 

“You can call me Ani.”

 

“Nice to meet you, Ani,” Rey tells him honestly, because even if he’s just a mirage, it’s true. She hauls herself up onto the speeder with a little more difficulty than usual. Her shoulder doesn’t want to take weight. She rolls it with a grimace and settles a pair of goggles over her eyes. She glances down at Ani, who’s just standing there. “You coming?” She pats the seat behind her. The speeder’s not really built for two people, but she’s small enough for a short ride.

 

But Ani shakes his head. He still smiling slightly, but he has a faraway look in his eyes even as he meets her gaze. “Nah,” he tells her. “Not tonight.”

 

Rey shrugs. It’s a short walk back to the Outpost, if that’s where he’s headed. “Okay. Thank you for fixing speeder.”

 

“You’re welcome, Rey.”

 

She nods, and he lifts his hand in a wave. She takes off in the direction of her camp. It’s almost too dark to navigate safely, but the moon is bright. She glances back over her shoulder only once. Ani stands with his hand still raised in farewell, and in the blue-violet wash of moonlight, for a just a second, she thinks it almost looks like he’s glowing. And then she crests a sand dune, and he’s gone.

 

She sleeps soundly that night, and forgets to wonder how he knew her name.

 

+

 

_The darkness wraps around him like a cloak, swirling, testing, eager to do his bidding. Eager to be used. But there is still a fracture in the protection it offers him, and no matter what he tries, he cannot mend it. It’s a crack like the one in his kyber crystal._

_You can be more powerful than all of them, the voice in the back of his head whispers. None of them have the connection to the Force that we do. Even that pathetic creature you call Master. You just have to reach out and_ **take it!**

 

_I’m trying, he gasps. I’m doing my best._

_Your best isn’t good enough._

****

_I’m sorry, he sobs._

_I’m sorry._

****

+

 

Ani’s jesting prediction that she doesn’t have to worry about thieves anymore turns out to be half-accurate. It’s true that no one tries to steal her speeder again. The other locals give her a wide berth after the fight. Mostly. To Rey’s consternation, a few of the… _rougher_ …individuals who frequent the outpost make a point of approaching her in the days immediately following the incident.

 

Rey can’t tell if they’re trying to frighten her or _befriend_ her. Possibly both. She’s certain that in either case, they are all _assessing her_. Rey has been reclassified from worthless lump to, well, if not a _threat_ than someone to take an interest in, at least. She’s not sure how she feels about that. On the one hand, she knows that a strong reputation – good or bad – is a powerful thing to have, especially for a small, scrappy scavenger with hardly anything but sand to her name. On the other hand, she’s suspicious of the extra attention. There’s something equally powerful about being and shadow that no one pays any mind to.

 

Confused, frustrated, and more than a little scared, Rey does her best to ignore everyone. She keeps quiet and doggedly goes about her business as usual. After a few days, the direct attention begins to fade away into relative disinterest, and when she notices the change, she breathes a sigh of relief.

 

But there are always newcomers to the Outpost, and Rey hasn’t quite earned the sort of reputation that comes with a disclaimer – _“Watch out fer that’un, she’ll try’an gut ye if ye cross ‘er”_ – so it’s often not until _after_ someone’s made a pass at her or tried to take advantage of her relatively small stature that someone thinks to mention to the unfortunate stranger that the strange Rey-girl isn’t quite as weak as she looks.

 

But Rey can hold her own. She’s smart. She’s resourceful. If she has to break a few noses or wandering hands with her staff…well, that’s just the way things work on Jakku.

 

+

 

_Weakness is unacceptable._

 

+

 

Rey is smart. Rey is resourceful. Rey is _persistent_. These are the qualities about her that matter most on Jakku. They are what keep her tired body moving when she feels like she’s on the brink of collapse. They are what keep her grimly focused on the task at hand when the alternative is to starve.

 

Rey _refuses_ to die alone on this forsaken planet.

 

In a world that demands such resourcefulness and ruthless tenacity, there is little room left over for flights of childish fancy. Rey is hardly a child anymore, for all that she does not know her correct age, but even when she was very young, she did not often give in to imaginative impulses. Not when there was a new skill to be learned or a task performed that would earn her food.

 

But Rey is terribly, bone-achingly lonely, and in rare moments of self-indulgence, she imagines companions who aren’t fully there. Her mind’s eye gives them form and color, but no amount of wishing can conjure flesh and blood.

 

They’re short-lived fantasies. Rey has never had a friend, and her imagination falters because she cannot fully fathom what having a friend is _like_. Someone to talk to, she thinks. The sound of another body breathing beside her in the long, dark, reaches of the night when she’s at her loneliest. A smile, bright like the sun.

 

Ani is a frequent visitor in her imagination.

 

When she was a child, she almost convinced herself that he was real. She knows better now, and keeps her hope tightly locked down inside of her and limits it to the things she _knows_. Her family will come back for her, one day. Just thinking it sparks a blossom of warmth in her chest. Family first, and then, maybe then, she will find a real friend. But while she waits, she imagines what it would be like. Practices on Ani.

 

“What makes you think I’m not real?” he asks her one evening when they’re both sprawled out in the sand in front of her hollowed-out home. Ani is older now, just as she is. She likes that he ages with her. A real friend would do that, too.

 

“Hmm?” she asks, not really listening. She’s staring up at the star-lit sky. It’s a clear night. She’s tracking constellations with half-shuttered eyes.

 

“What makes you think I’m not real?” Ani repeats.

 

Rey looks over at him. In her imagination, he’s rolled onto his side, propped up on one elbow to look at her. He’s even more indistinct-looking than usual tonight, but she thinks that makes sense. They’ve been out here for hours and they’ve barely spoken. Even now, Rey’s mind is drifting back up to the stars. Ani always seems less solid when she’s not focusing on him directly.

 

“You always disappear,” she answers his question.

 

“I’m here when you need me,” Ani says. In the dark, his face is shadowed. She can’t quite make out his expression.

 

“I know,” Rey says, turning her gaze upwards again. She folds her hands over her stomach, plucking absently at the frayed edge of her tunic. She changes the subject. “What do you think it’s like, in space?”

 

“Cold,” Ani says after a long moment. “Beautiful. Lonely.”

 

Even Jakku gets cold, some nights, and loneliness is Rey’s closest companion, but beauty...Rey closes her eyes and imagines it. Stars not just above, but all around her, stretching out into infinity. “I think I’ve been there before,” she says. _Before Jakku_ , she doesn’t say.

 

When she opens them again, Ani’s gone, and the sand where his shadow lay is smooth and untouched.

 

+

 

Rey dreams of space, and sand, and sometimes water.

 

She knows what an ocean is though she’s never seen one. She saw a holovid, once, and she’s seen maps. Academically, she understands the concept even though she can’t quite believe in the existence of so much water all in one place. But in her dreams she can feel the salty spray against her face and feel the tidal pull pulsing like a heartbeat beneath her skin.

 

She likes these dreams. They’re peaceful. The ocean can be tumultuous, but there’s a steady persistence to moving water that calms her. The dreams give her hope, although she cannot say way.

 

They don’t make her feel any less lonely, though.

 

+

 

_He meditates to the sound of mechanized breathing, more reliable than a heartbeat. In-out. In-out. In-out._

_Yellow eyes stare back at him through the darkness, always watching, always judging._

_Strength, he thinks. This is strength._

 

+

 

“Why don’t you leave Jakku?”

 

The question comes at once as a surprise, and yet not. How can Rey be surprised by her own subconscious, after all?

 

“You know why,” Rey tells him.

 

Ani looks down at her with something like pity in his eyes. She doesn’t like it.

 

“There’s so much more out there, Rey,” he tells her softly. “I know you see it in your dreams. You could see a real ocean, if you wanted. Why stay here?”

 

“How can I leave?” she demands, fear welling up inside her.

 

“Barter passage on a ship,” Ani suggests easily, willfully misunderstanding her. She knows he knows. He always knows her innermost fears. “ _Steal_ a ship.” He shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter, Rey, but you _can’t stay here_. Why can’t you see that?”

 

“I have to stay,” she tells him painfully. She thinks of marks, scratched in rusted metal. Counting down the days until… “My family won’t be able to find me if I leave.”

 

“Your family isn’t coming back!”

 

They both recoil from the unexpected outburst. Ani turns away, hiding his face from her.

 

“Don’t you see?” he says quietly. His voice is almost swallowed by the wind. “They are _never_ coming back for you. If you stay here, you will die here.”

 

Rey stares at his profile in dismay. “You don’t know that,” she argues. “They’re coming back.”

 

“This is not your destiny, Rey. Don’t let it become your fate.”

 

_Destiny_. What does destiny have to do with a rough little scavenger girl? Rey shakes her head in denial. “You’re wrong.”

 

Ani turns back to face her. “You’re lying to yourself.”

 

“What do you know?” Rey demands, fear giving way to anger.

 

“Rey – ”

 

“Leave,” she says flatly.

 

“What? No, I – ”

 

Rey points with her staff. Out, out into the darkness. Her arm quivers with tension, but she holds it there. “I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”

 

Ani looks at her in dismay. “But I’m your – I thought I was your friend.”

 

“Go!”

 

He looks as though he wants to continue fighting her on this, but something is physically holding him back. Stiffly, he turns. She watches his back and the taut set of his shoulders as he walks steadily away from her. Out, out, out into the empty desert wasteland beyond her camp. Not home. Never home. Home is out there, between the stars and oceans, and it’s coming back for her. _Her family is coming back for her_.

 

Ani is wrong.

 

She banishes him from her treacherous mind.

 

+

 

_He lifts his head from his hands, tears stinging his dark eyes._

_Please, Grandfather! Help me!_

 

+

 

Desert life goes on.

 

Rey marks the days, but stops counting them.

 

By the time a small droid called BB-8 turns her life upside down, she honestly has no idea how old she is.

 

A man named Finn is her first real friend.

 

She thinks she might be twenty.

 

+

 

_“Don’t be afraid,” he tells her. “I feel it too.”_

_She grits her teeth, eyes flashing. She’s afraid, but she’s also angry. “I’m not giving you anything!”_

_“We’ll see.”_

_Her breathing is ragged and choked as she tries to resist him. To his utter disbelief, he feels it as she digs in her mental heels and holds her ground. Pushes, pushes…_

_“You,” she says, and there’s a note of wonder in her voice, layered with her fear and anger and pain. He tightens his grip on her mind, trying to barrel forward even as she pushes back._

_The weight of his monstrous shadow is heavy against his back, swallowing up all the light in the room as she holds his gaze with defiant eyes and speaks his most shameful secret out loud like it’s nothing but air._

_“You’re afraid you’ll never be as strong as Darth Vader!”_

 

+

 

Rey is cold, colder than she has ever been in her entire life, and it’s seeping into her bones in a way that might never come out, but she can’t stop now. Finn is lying in the snow behind her, silent and still. _Please don’t be dead. I can’t bear it if you’re dead, too._

 

Kylo Ren is a blazing flame in front of her. Rey feels like she’s looking at the world through something other than her eyes and Kylo burns brighter than the lightsaber he wields, taking up her entire field of vision with his anger and fear.

 

_He’s badly injured_. Even as they fight, she manages the coherent thought. She’s not stupid – she knows it’s the only reason he hasn’t managed to kill her yet. They are both fighting with a wild edge of desperation but it can’t last. In a sizzling clash of blades they are suddenly locked together.

 

Kylo is taller, bigger, more experienced. His pale face is awash with the red glow of his lightsaber and he pushes forward, bending her back. _This is it_ , Rey thinks as she struggles to hold her ground.

 

For some incomprehensible reason, he hesitates. Instead of killing her, he _begs_. He doesn’t surrender, but he begs for hers. Surrender, not annihilation. It’s more than he offered Han. Rey can barely hear him, though, over the voice that’s screaming inside her skull.

 

_Kill him._

_Kill him!_

The darkness swirls around them, and it’s powerful. Rey can do it, if she wants. She can reach out and use it to kill him. And this would all be over. But there’s a light, too, and it’s almost blinding. Rey closes her eyes to shut it out, but she can still see Kylo’s blazing presence burning against her eyelids. A memory dances across her mind, unbidden.

 

_“This is not your destiny, Rey. Don’t let it become your fate.”_

_KILL HIM!_

 

_No!_ Rey thinks, and with a great surge of strength she hadn’t known she possessed, she pushes forward and Kylo falls.

 

What happens next happens quickly, but for the two seconds she to teeter on the edge of indecision before the ground ruptures into a gaping chasm between them and makes the choice for her, she sees Kylo’s upturned face. A terrible burn splits his face diagonally.

 

Rey feels sick. _I did that_ , she thinks, terrified.

 

Then the ground quakes and rips apart, and Rey turns, and _runs_.

 

+

 

By unspoken agreement, Chewbacca stays with the _Falcon_ at the base of the island. Out of necessity, R2D2 stays with him. In the scant time that she’s spent with the quirky astromech, she’s gotten a good sense of the droid’s tenacious capacity for not doing what he’s told, and of the depth of his loyalty to Luke Skywalker. She knows with a deep certainty that if his jets could propel him up the twisting slope, he’d already be heads above her.

 

Rey rests her hand on his scorched dome in a gesture of solidarity before starting her ascent.

 

She’s glad for the climb, really. It gives her time to calm her racing thoughts. Physical activity that for once doesn’t involve running for her life is nice, too.

 

There’s power on this island. She can feel it building as she climbs. She’s torn between anticipation and nervousness. She quickens her pace.

 

When she’s almost at the top, something makes her pause and look back.

 

Her heart thuds heavily in her chest.

 

_Ani_ is standing behind her, twenty feet down the slope. She knows she should feel surprise, but what fills her instead is a sudden surge of relief. He’s dressed in pale grays like she is, and the bright sunlight makes his dark blonde hair shine golden where it curls around his collar. His eyes are bright and clear like the stone-colored sea below. Whether he’s real or imagined, he’s here. Something familiar in this harsh, unfamiliar world.

 

There is something going on here that she doesn’t fully grasp, but Rey swallows back her questions and gives him a nod. She turns and continues upwards. She doesn’t look back, but she can tell he’s following her.

 

Then she crests the last rocky hillock and gets her first look at the man half the galaxy is looking for.

 

Luke Skywalker turns slowly. He pushes back his rough-woven hood with both hands; one flesh, one mechanical. His face is deeply lined and his beard is turning white, but his eyes are as bright as the sky above. Rey fumbles with her pack, and extracts the lightsaber she’s been keeping safe. She holds it out, arm fully extended, and waits.

 

Luke stares into her face for a long moment, and then his gaze slides over her shoulder. Rey feels a presence behind her, and then a strange sensation like the edge where sunlight meets shadow passes over her. Her arm tingles, and when she looks, she sees that Ani has places his hand on her shoulder. It’s the oddest sensation – she can feel that his hand is resting there, but not the weight of it. She looks up in to his face, and standing this close, she sees a thin scar that cuts through the corner of his eye. She’s never noticed it before. Or maybe it wasn’t there. She’s reminded violently of Kylo Ren, although the mark she gave him is far, far worse. She looks back at Luke, who is wearing an expression caught somewhere between recognition, pride, and regret.

 

Something slots into place.

 

“Luke,” the ghost of Anakin Skywalker says quietly as he grips Rey’s shoulder with all the force of sunlight and shadow and looks out upon his son. “Your family needs you.”

 

Luke’s eyes move back to Rey, and then to the lightsaber she’s still holding out in offering.

 

“Han is dead,” she says, although she doesn’t mean to blurt it out. But it’s too late to take the words back now, and seeing Luke’s stoic expression, she thinks that maybe it doesn’t matter. There’s no surprise there – only grief.

 

“I know,” he says, his voice rough from disuse. He takes a step closer.

 

“General Organa needs you,” Rey presses on.

 

“I know,” he says again.

 

“Will you come with me?”

 

She doesn’t plead. This has to be his choice.

 

Luke is silent for a long moment. Finally, he bows his head in acquiescence. “Yes, Rey. I will come with you.”

 

Anakin’s grip on her shoulder tightens briefly, and then the sensation disappears altogether, smoke in the ether; but Rey no longer feels bereft at his absence. _He’ll be back._ He’s always there when she needs him.

 

She still doesn’t understand what’s happening to her life. She’s still frightened, and she’s still angry – at Kylo Ren and the First Order, at herself, and even at this man she doesn’t know for disappearing in the first place. But she feels something else, too, blossoming up in her chest like a flower unfolding its petals in the pale morning light. Finn. BB-8. Han and Chewie. The _Millennium Falcon._ All the friends she’s gained and lost in such a short space of time after never having any in her whole life

 

_Hope_.

 

What she feels is _hope_.

 

+

**Author's Note:**

> To be honest, I'm torn on the whole Rey Skywalker thing. On the one hand, I think it's too easy and would be a total cop out. Can't a girl be awesome without a mythical family backstory? On the other hand, it's such an absolutely Star Wars thing to do that I'll almost be disappointed if they don't go for it. I'm complicated, okay?!
> 
> Comments are a balm to my sick, sequestered soul. ::cough cough, looks extra pathetic::


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